


Two Approaches, Same Solution

by Thuri, Trilliah (Randomslasher)



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-10
Updated: 2012-06-10
Packaged: 2017-11-07 10:36:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/430126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thuri/pseuds/Thuri, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randomslasher/pseuds/Trilliah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn’t one thing that makes Phil Coulson fall in love with Clint Barton.</p>
<p>*  *  *</p>
<p>If Clint’s being honest with himself--which he doesn’t actively avoid, but is sometimes way more trouble than it’s worth--he’d wanted Coulson to fuck him long before he’d fallen in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Approaches, Same Solution

**Author's Note:**

> Clint's POV was written by Thuri and Phil's by Trilliah

If Clint’s being honest with himself--which he doesn’t actively _avoid_ , but is sometimes way more trouble than it’s worth--he’d wanted Coulson to fuck him long before he’d fallen in love. He didn’t think there was anyone out there about to blame him for it. Coulson was...Coulson. He walked through the halls at SHIELD with the kind of confidence that only came from being frighteningly good at what he did.

And he knew several hundred ways to kill you with his bare hands. It was _hot_.

So yeah, Clint’d been interested for years before he’d ever actually fallen for the man. And in some ways, he’s _never_ fallen for Coulson.

Phil is an entirely different matter.

Coulson is his boss, his handler, the calm voice on the other end of the comm, the direction in an op. Coulson is the one who chases him down to finish his paperwork, the one who yanks him out of the air ducts, the one who rolls his eyes when Clint grabs his bow instead of a rifle.

Coulson is the one who calls him Barton with equal parts exasperation and fondness.

Phil calls him Clint.

It’s Phil who has the incredibly soft touch at changing dressings for wounds that really should still be under a doctor’s care. It’s Phil who squeals like a teenage girl when he finds the last Captain America trading card in a dusty little shop in New Mexico. It’s Phil who fills the TIVO with crap reality TV and blushes when Clint asks what happened to his Battlestar Galactica.

It’s Phil who eats overly sugary snack cakes and who holds him when the nightmares come.

Clint probably could’ve kept things professional, if he’d only ever worked with Coulson. But the longer they’d known each other, the more missions--the more aftermaths--the more often he got to see Phil. And Phil was something entirely different. Where he wanted Coulson to fuck him through the mattress, order him to his knees, make Clint suck him off while he still wore his ridiculously hot suit...he wanted Phil to hold him. To take care of him, to...fuck. To love him back.

Clint had avoided love, all his adult life. Had avoided opening himself up that much. It was one reason he and Nat worked so well together--they could each depend on the other not to be stupid and bring unnecessary emotion and complications into their partnership. Yeah, he cared about her, and she about him, but they weren’t dumb enough to fuck it up with love.

With Phil it didn’t feel dumb. With Phil it felt...right. Safe. Like coming home. Like home was a good place to _be_.

So yeah. He loved Phil. Loved his stupid, ridiculous, adorable, amazing smile. Loved his glee in his collectibles, loved the way he rolled his eyes and complained about Stark. Loved watching him sacked out on the couch in flannel pants and an ancient tshirt, eating donuts and watching Supernanny. Loved that he _got_ to see it, when no one at SHIELD knew there was anything beneath the suits and the competency.

Loved watching him kick ass, loved that he always came home after.

Loved _him_.

It should’ve felt stupid, it should’ve felt risky, and if Fury had been less than the man he was, it _could’ve_ gotten them both fired.

As it was...being with Phil was the first thing in Clint’s crazy fucked up life that had ever felt _right_.

* * *

It isn’t one thing that makes Phil Coulson fall in love with Clint Barton. It’s more an accumulation of smaller, subtle things. In hindsight that makes perfect sense: Clint Barton _is_ subtle. There’s more to him than anyone else knows. Phil likes that. 

Stark once said that Fury’s secrets had secrets, but Fury’s nothing next to Clint, because everyone _knows_ Fury has secrets. Fury wears them like a badge of honor, with his ridiculous coat and the (albeit necessary) eyepatch and the sour expression. Fury _wants_ you to know he has secrets, because that’s who Fury _is_. 

Clint is different. He has secrets--probably just as many as Fury--but no one knows it. He hides in plain sight, so well that no one even knows he’s hiding. Or if they do--if anyone is arrogant enough to think they’ve figured him out--they’re just seeing one of the smokescreens. He’ll never forget the night that Rogers sat down next to Clint at the bar and ever so gently, ever so _carefully_ told him it was all right if he was lonely, that he understood, and that he was always there to talk if Clint ever needed anything. It had literally been all he could do not to laugh, when Clint had turned large, hesitantly trusting eyes towards Rogers, nodded solemnly, and promised he’d remember that.

And the tiny little smirk he’d sent in Phil’s direction after had shot straight through him, hitting its mark with as much ease as any of Hawkeye’s arrows. 

He loves that, too--the understatement when they’re around everyone else. He’s probably a little possessive when it comes to Clint, if he’s honest. He can’t help it. He _likes_ that no one else knows that for every smart-assed remark, there’s a whole _book_ of clever subtext. That for every tiny smirk, there’s a grin so blinding it could outshine Thor, Rogers, and Stark’s put together. For every half-hooded glance, there’s a gaze so deep and intensely soul-searching that no armor on the planet could hide what it sees. 

He likes getting to keep all that for himself. He likes knowing Clint chose _him_ to share it with. The little boy inside Clint has been hiding pieces of himself, treasures, and he’d taken Phil shyly by the hand and shown him each and every one. Phil understands what a privilege that is, and guards them as jealously as Clint does himself. Every secret sigh, every brush of fingertips; it’s all _his_ , and he loves that, too. 

But mostly, he loves Clint: the man who curls up beside him and obligingly lets him watch Supernanny and Hoarders, even if he does mock them the entire time. The man who sat silently by his side for three solid days after Loki’d stabbed him, holding his hand and waiting for him to wake up. The man who hates strawberries because they remind him of tiny tongues, who secretly loves Johnny Cash, who thinks mannequins are creepy and always reads the last page of a book first, “just in case.” 

He loves the man who can sleep with his eyes open, who sometimes snores so loud it wakes him up, who squeezes the toothpaste from the bottom of the tube and leaves him notes in the shower steam reminding him to do the same. The man who will mutter threats to his socks if he can’t find their matches after doing the laundry. The man who _does_ the laundry, even when it’s Phil’s turn, if he knows Phil has had a hard day. The man who can somehow always tell when Phil has had a hard day. 

So no, it isn’t _one_ thing that makes him love Clint Barton, just like there isn’t one thing that makes him keep loving him. It’s all the little things that cumulatively make him the most interesting, intelligent, complex, incredible man he’s ever met in his life. And every day that list grows. 

He can’t wait to find out what he’ll fall in love with tomorrow.


End file.
